


The Bandage Rolls, Vicar!

by sans_patronymic



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Banter, Fluff and Humor, Jealousy, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 03:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11637954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: Watson wishes to meet one of Holmes's former lovers, only to discover they have met before. Silliness, jealousy, and a game of 20 questions ensue.





	The Bandage Rolls, Vicar!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sherlock Kink Meme Prompt #101, ACD, Holmes/Watson:
> 
> "Watson meets one of Holmes’ former lovers (maybe on a case) and gets jealous."
> 
> Perhaps not *quite* what the OP wanted, but I hope it tickles your fancy all the same.

From what I have written about my friend, Sherlock Holmes, one might think he is a difficult man to know—that he is secretive, unforthcoming, or disinclined to reveal much of his personal life. This is true and it is untrue. True, for he does not often bother to divulge anecdotes from his youth; no tales of boyhood dreams or schoolyard rivalries. Untrue, for, as anyone who knows him can attest, Holmes is quite fond of hearing himself speak and he is his own favorite subject. And though I could fill volumes with his opinions of his own greatest accomplishments and most resented shortcomings, I can say very little about his early days, even as we enter our third decade of companionship.

Everything I know of Holmes’s life before our meeting has come to me in dribs and drabs, usually owing to the oddest of coincidences. It took a chance conversation about heredity to learn the existence Holmes’s own brother; the threat of tidying up to hear the story of the Musgrave Ritual; a fortuitously placed bee sting to permit me to question him about the scar on his left side. The more sensitive the topic, the less likely I am every to hear about it. Even as our relationship became more than that of two friends, we failed to develop the sort of intimacy which would lead us to whisper late at night about lost loves or broken hearts. I spent the first five months of our amative coupling convinced I must have been Holmes’s first carnal dalliance before he demonstrated to me how very wrong I was.  _Demonstrated_ , mind you, not discussed. Of all topics, love is the most forbidden. 

Over the years I have come to accept there is no teasing out these morsels of information. Holmes lets them fall when and where they may, and while he always denies it, I believe he enjoys keeping himself aloof, if only to see my commitment to him burn forth as curiosity. As a young man, there was little which aroused my curiosity more than the topic of my partner’s amorous past. My first knowledge on that front came, as do most Holmesian revelations, on the heels of a case...

It was in the spring of ’87, when a professional acquaintance and friend of mine, a doctor whom I should prefer not to name, found himself accused of general misconduct. A good-hearted fellow, if bit inept in legal matters, he turned me for aid and, knowing he was no more guilty than I was King of Arabia, I enlisted Holmes’s help in resolving matters. It was, I may say in retrospect, in such unlikely circumstances I ought to have expected to learn about Holmes’s previous paramour, given his flair for the abstruse connection; nevertheless, as I settled down into my chair that afternoon, I suspected nothing lay ahead of us but a quiet meal and a cigar.

“Well, Holmes,” I began, cigar already between my lips, “I should say we made great strides today, don’t you agree?”

Holmes hummed. “You may tell your friend he will have his good name reaffirmed within the week.”

“Thank God for that.”

"Yes, thank God for that," echoed Holmes. 

He took to his chair and we lapsed into a comfortable silence. The tick of the mantel clock, the rumble and hooves of traffic on the street beyond the windows, that was all the accompaniment we needed. I relished this tranquility for some minutes until Holmes drew a sharp breath and asked: 

"Pray, Watson, tell me, whatever did you do to that young woman to make her hate you so?"

"I say!"

We had just returned from St. Bart's, wherein I had enlisted the confidence of a nurse's aid I had once been familiar with in answering some of our inquiries. She had not, it is fair to admit, been overly enthusiastic to help us skirt the edges of professional discretion, yet, to surmise there had once been anything between the two of us, I chalked up to Holmes's unfaltering eye. I was still a young man then, and had not yet come to realize the futility of trying to keep secrets from Sherlock Holmes. As it was, I was quite take aback by the frankness of his question.

"Not nearly so much, I should think," I answered at last. "I took her to a dancehall once, she had me for tea, and that was that. I wasn't even certain she should remember me."

"She evidently did," snorted Holmes, "between her and the fellow at the Dubonnet Club, you seem to leave quite the trail of broken hearts."

I sat back in my chair, a flush creeping up from my collar. I did not like to think of myself as the sort to 'leave a trail of broken hearts,' but I admit there are a few people, throughout London and elsewhere, who deserved much better than I could give. I am not proud of it, and to hear Holmes's teasing made me wish to melt into the upholstery. He rose, a knowing grin slowly spreading across his lips, and moved to the sideboard.

"Come, come, Watson, I see no reason to be embarrassed," Holmes said smugly, pouring us both a much needed glass of brandy. "I had no illusions as to the depth of your experience. And I can certainly can imagine being very cross at having 'lost you', so to speak."

My face was red hot. I folded my arm across my chest and fixed my sights on the mantelpiece.

"It isn't my fault who we bump into," I mentioned lamely, "We could just as soon have run into one of your former...paramours."

Holmes chuckled into his brandy and handed me mine.

"Not _just_ as soon. The odds are in your favor, old boy."

"Well, if we can't rely on chance," I began, shifting in my chair, "perhaps you should introduce me to someone. To level the field a bit."

"Oh, you have already met one of my paltry numbers."

I took too large a swallow of brandy and coughed. 

"Have I?"

"Oh yes."

"When?"

"On several occasions. I'm not certain when the last time was... six months or a year ago, perhaps."

I sat bolt upright and gazed at the man in disbelief. I had been trying for months to imagine the sort of person Holmes might have known before me, yet my visions had always remained foggy and inexact. A man, probably, but that was all I could surmise; there seemed no fit mate for Holmes anywhere on this Earth. Now, to learn there was such a person, whom I had met—and 'on several occasions’—I was dumbfounded.

"Should I recognize this person?"

Holmes let slip a bark of laughter, "I should be worried for you if you didn't."

"And is...that is to say—is he a man?"

"Does that shock you very much, Vicar?"

"A man that I have met on several occasions and would recognize?"

“Yes, and he is bigger than a bread bin. Now, if you ask me whether he is animal, vegetable, or mineral, there I’m afraid I was never quite sure…”

"But who?" I wondered aloud. 

Who, indeed? I searched my memory for some hint, some lingering glance or oddly phrased affection. I thought of the men Holmes knew: scores and scores, no doubt, but none whom I had met that seemed to catch Holmes's fancy. None that made his eyes light up the way they sometimes did for me. In fact, I could think of no acquaintance of his I had ever met 'on several occasions’, save Holmes's tobacconist and a series of police inspectors.

"By Jove, it isn't a Yardsman, is it?"

"Hardly!" He sniggered, "That would be a pretty tale to tell!"

One by one, I named every man I could think of: the tailor, the barber, the dustman, a legal clerk, a pickpocket, on and on, until my cigar burned to a butt and I had thoroughly accused half of London of gross indecency with my dearest friend. Holmes thwarted me every turn, guffawing at some suggestions and hissing at others. When, at last, I had exhausted my mind, I cried:

"Well, who the devil is it?!"

"Should you like me to tell you?"

"I bloody well should."

Nestled in his chair, cradling his brandy with both hands, Holmes made a small hum. An eyebrow twitched. I held my breath, not knowing whether his expression boded well or ill.

“I should really have thought you knew,” he muttered into his brandy, “Seeing as how he is in many ways more your friend than mine.”

“Oh, out with it, you peacock!” I blustered.

"Why, Stamford, of course!"

"Stamford!" I exclaimed and let my brandy snifter tumble to the carpet. 

"Why ever else did you imagine he introduced the two of us? I believe he was trying to play some cruel joke on me. But, see who laughs now, for you are a delight and a gentleman, which is much more than can be said of  _him_."

"I... but... how!"

I realized then that I had never wondered how Stamford had come to know Holmes at all. At the time, the introduction seemed like fate, and I had taken for granted Holmes and Stamford's friendship. So distracted had I been by my own miseries, it did not seem odd for a medical dresser to fraternize with a man from the chemical laboratory, even one so strange as Holmes.

"You see, our wings at St. Bart's shared a supply room," explained Holmes, "That is how we first became introduced—Stamford was keeping nights and I was attending to my own research on my own schedule. When you're the only two lads about at three in the morning, it seems only natural to become friendly."

" _How_ friendly?"

"Ah, well... ordinarily so, at first. Except, he kept ‘accidentally’ shutting himself in with me. In the supply room, or the chemical closet. Nothing overt, mind you, but the message was clear. And..."

"And?"

"My dear doctor, I do believe you're jealous." The grin upon his face was as sharp and painful as glass. "If you must know: the evening came when I had a particularly tedious night waiting for some cultures to develop and when he came 'round, I let him lock me in with the bandage rolls."

"The  _bandage rolls!"_

"Yes, Vicar, the  _bandage rolls_. That is more or less all there is to it. We rendezvoused here and there for a few months. We were both merely a distraction for the other. Ultimately, I believe he found me inconstant and odd. And not to speak ill of your friend, but… I should not care for him as a constant companion—”

As Holmes went on listing Stamford’s various faults—droll, clumsy, perpetually smelling of onions—I found myself reconsidering, in the light of this revelation, the whole of my friendship with Stamford, from our chance reunion at the Criterion, to the last time I had seen him for a game of billiards some months back. I felt certain now that the whole while I was being laughed at. 

It was as Holmes had said, I had been foisted at him as a sort of practical joke. Why else should a man I had hardly been chummy with suddenly greet me, then a haggard invalid, well on his way to becoming a drunk, with such enthusiasm and whisk me off so immediately to lodge with his former lover? That cad! He had probably supposed I should inconvenience Holmes to the hilt: torture him with an injured soldier’s tales of woe, ask for loans in bad faith, fill his life with empty bottles and loose women. 

But that I had stayed, and that Holmes and I got on so splendidly, Stamford must have guessed at the true nature of our relationship. Indeed, didn’t he always sport such a queer smile when he asked how Holmes and I were getting on? No doubt he sat there, knowing all the while of my and Holmes’s intimacy. _Knowing_ Holmes. I pictured his short, ugly, little fingers gliding across Holmes’s skin in the hospital supply closet. I saw Holmes having to crane his head down to receive a kiss from those onion-laced lips.

“Watson!” a familiar voice called and I blinked to find Sherlock Holmes staring at me as though he were a kitten and I, a bowl of cream. He settled into my lap neatly and ran a hand through my hair. “There you are—I seemed to have lost you to some fantasy for a moment.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “I was just struck by the thought of you and… and... _him_.”

“My dear fellow, I had no idea you would be so affected."

“I am all right,” said I, “though I feel like a fool for having not known.”

“You are hardly a fool,” Holmes replied in earnest, “I would have told you, only I thought it obvious. Though... I suppose there are many things I find obvious, which others do not.”

“I should say so, indeed.”

He blushed at my flattery and tangled our limbs together as best was possible in the confines of my arm chair. A thin, perfect finger traced the edge of my ear and the line of my jaw. I began to feel very foolish for my speculations. Surely, whatever fun there was to be had amongst the bandage rolls, there was never such tenderness and affection as there was here, in our home, together.

“In which case, I shall endeavor to warn you next time we may meet any of my jilted lovers.”

“And I will return the courtesy.”

“No need, my dear boy, I prepare for the shock every morning, since it seems one cannot throw a stone in London without hitting someone with whom you’ve done a bit of wick-dipping.” 

“Nonsense!” I cried.

“Oh _is_ it?”

“Yes. It isn’t _just_ London. There are several other ports of call in which my name is synonymous with Love.”

Holmes gave me a firm prod in the chest. His eyes shone in the lamplight and I knew just then that I loved him very much. We kissed such tenderness and affection that it erased any doubts and obliterated any jealousy.

However little I may know of Sherlock Holmes, I know more of him than anyone else ever has, and likely, ever will. I am the keeper of this brilliant man’s private thoughts, of his cherished memories. He may not share much, nor often, but what I have is mine alone and dearer to me than all the riches of a Sultan’s horde. I can hear him now, rummaging about in the pantry. I think I will go lock myself in with him and scandalize the dry goods. And there perhaps, if I am lucky, a container of millet will remind him of some other story, destined only for my ears.


End file.
